Alabama Basketball: Tide get favorable NCAA Tournament draw

Alabama basketball is dancing once again

Despite ending the season on a losing streak, Alabama basketball reached the NCAA Tournament. The Tide will be dancing for the second straight season, but they have a lower seed after a disappointing year.

Alabama is a 6-seed in the West Region. This means that they are in the same region as the top team in the country. While that may sound bad, this is actually a favorable draw for the Crimson Tide.

For starters, they begin the NCAA Tournament against a play-in team. This could backfire, but these are the worst at-large teams in theory. Alabama basketball will either play Rutgers or Notre Dame, and they are significantly better than both squads.

The 3-seed is Texas Tech, but the Red Raiders are far from a lock to win the first round. Even if Texas Tech wins, they’ve lost three of their last six games and have the worst perimeter shooting team in the country. The defense is strong, but they are beatable.

The two best teams in the West Region are Gonzaga and Duke. Alabama basketball already beat Gonzaga once, and Duke is spiraling with a few bad losses to end the regular season. They have the pressure of finishing with a title to end Coach K’s career, but they have weaknesses the Tide can exploit.

None of this matters if Alabama can’t correct its mistakes from late in the season. The Tide need to work on making better decisions to stay out of foul trouble and limit turnovers. They also need to avoid allowing the game-changing runs that have happened in recent weeks. Still, the path is attainable for Alabama basketball.

This team is incredibly volatile, and no one has a perfect path to the Final Four. Still, this is a solid starting place for the Tide. We’ll see how it goes in Alabama’s first game against either Notre Dame or Rutgers.